11 August, 2011

It’s important in technical documentation to be clear about who does what. It’s also important in news reporting. One of my pet peeves is this kind of headline from the Montreal Gazette:

The headline is ambiguous; but this is the first article about the crime, so you can read the first paragraph to find out that the police were the ones who fired carelessly into a public street and killed someone who was merely walking to work.

In later articles, the phrase “police shooting” will appear again and it will be harder to find out if the crime is shooting of police or by police. This kind of writing should be outlawed!